2013 Goals and Objectives

2013 Goals and Objectives

Having just went over how I did with my 2012 goals and objectives it (and considering I am writing this post on 1/1/2013) it is time for my yearly goals and objectives post. I create these posts mostly for myself to see what I accomplished over the year while providing myself with focus to prevent myself from just treading in the same place. I dislike the term resolutions because they usually do not provide a plan. For purposes of organization I will break down the goals in the following categories:

Personal Life

Professional Life

Blogging World

Online Income World

Financial Goals

Personal Goals for 2013

2013 is going to be a year of change for my family and I. We should be closing on our new home in the next few weeks. While I am excited about the new home it is coming with some big changes; some financial and some not. I am not sure how to put it down in words, but I feel great about where I am with family and friends. These relationships are very important to me and thus every other goal and objectives is to further this personal goal of keeping my personal life balanced and happy.

With that main very vague goal out of the way lets talk about specifics for my personal life that need to change. I hate to be a broken record but I have to repeat my 2012 (and 2011) goal of:

I need to lose some freaking weight.

It really bothers me that I completely failed over the years with regard to this goal. I think what bothers me is that I have the tools and knowledge how to overcome the failure.

Starting with the weight loss. The only thing I have ever stuck with over a longer period of time is Krav Maga. I am going to try and do 2 or 3 classes a week. This is going to have to really monitor this goal because my current home is about 4 miles from the school and the new place is 13 or so miles. I am going to start keeping a journal because if I am not going it isn’t only a terrible thing for my health it is a waste of money since classes are expensive compared to a regular gym. As far as the diet part I won’t stick with any kind of extreme diet. I know I will fail. Thus, I think the plan has to be small changes throughout the year. I have a few that I can think of off the top of my head that I know would start me in the right direction. If I could implement these for a full year I know I would be on the right track:

Eat a non-cereal based breakfast every morning

Have a piece of fruit most days during mid-day

Drink at least 64 to 80oz of water daily

Pass on starches one or two nights a week

GET MORE SLEEP

I am not sure how to keep myself accountable. I created this website to keep myself accountable for my financial actions but I know I don’t have enough to talk about for a health based blog, nor do I think anyone wants to read about my health gains or failures. I am thinking just a plain spreadsheet.

Professional Goals for 2013

I break my professional life into two parts, my career and my small law practice.

Career

I had an excellent meeting with my bosses last week. They have provided specific things for me to improve on which include engaging those financial planners which I do not currently seek my help on a daily basis. They have provided me with a great goal to try and accomplish. Last year I stated I was thinking about getting my CFP but life happened and it isn’t necessary so it fell off my radar. I do want to increase my knowledge on retirement account options (412is, Defined benefits, etc) so I will make it my goal to read up more on the topic.

Law Practice

This is an ever changing part of my professional life. Sometimes it is busy and other times it is slow. I got my domain up and running (with an email address) but have not completed the website. My first goal for the new year is to get a standard website up there. I know enough about the internet where I don’t have grand illusions that the site will bring in clients, but the first thing anyone does when they leave a consultation meeting is google you – there is no excuse not to have a site up and running.

Blogging World Goals for 2013

I have been publishing too many guest posts recently. My goal is to make sure that with all the guest posts that come through I match the content with at least 3 or 4 new posts a week. Over the past year or so I made a lot of under the hood changes that no one should notice, so going to ignore that on MyJourneytoMillions for the upcoming time.

Online Income World Goals for 2013

My job is income stream number 1, my blog is income stream 2, my online company started with a partner which is an off-shoot of this blog is income stream 3, my law practice is income stream number 4…after that it sort of dies down pretty quickly. My Wife’s personal blog has some great metrics and I have recently started to monetize it (without her full consent lol). This year my goal is to help clean up under the hood. I know with a little back end help the site can take off for traffic.

In addition, I have two sites (PregnancyPool and Manceptional) that are sort of floundering out there with no real love going to either. I have to either decide to get them both going or just drop them so I don’t even think about them. So my goal is either to get behind each one of them with both time and resources or just cut the fat.

Financial Goals for 2013

With the housing goal which has loomed over my financial world for the past few years I have done almost completed I can start to become a little more aggressive with the decision of where to put my savings. In addition, with my smallest law school loan off the books, there is no real debt I am looking to pay down this year. So my goals are:

Working with The Wife come up with a number that represents approximately 6 months of our needs for an emergency fund which stays in cash and does not grow

Go back to 2008 Evan and reevaluate all our ongoing monthly bills to look for inefficiencies and holes

Increase our life insurance death benefits – I , and The Wife, are woefully underinsured given our new home purchase.

My reach goal is to purchase an investment property. I am working with a partner (or two) on this one so I am not sure if I’ll be able to get this one done. I would have preferred not to work with a partner but I won’t have the liquidity necessary (given goal number 1 above) to purchase a property around me. While I admitted to a dream side business I’d like to open up, I don’t think that is anywhere on the horizon.

Last year I set a net worth goal increase of 50%. While I probably missed that goal (will know in a day or two when I finalize the calcs) I have to go with a lower growth rate this year as most of the money I save will be put into the market or into an investment property so I am going to say my goal is grow my net worth by 40%. This goal and objective is not all that important to me, as it really doesn’t provide for an actual plan to accomplish but rather just a number I’d like to hit. I think it is a hope that everything else I talked about in the post results in this increase.

What are your goals and objectives for 2013? Please feel free to share links below

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Evan is the owner of My Journey to Millions which was started to track his journey from a broke debt ridden law school graduate to building a positive balance. Need more Evan? Follow him on Twitter, Contact him or get new posts directly to your email

10 Comments

Sparkpeople.com provides a nice (free) way to record your weight loss goals – including your food and your exercise. They even have a “blog” like journal, so you could share your thoughts there without creating a whole new blog.

A long time ago, I lost 35-40 lbs. I learned that diets are in most cases artificial and difficult to stick with. Yo need to increase activity to conquer any weight issue. You can walk after dinner or during lunch. I used to get up early and go running before work. Pick the one or more to do every day.

I am fond of Fitbit. It helps me keep track of steps and calories burned. Combine that with a food-tracking website like Loseit.com (numbers import into Fitbit’s website), you can adjust your eating to make sure you are at a daily deficit.

One of things that’s nice about LoseIt (and SparkPeople) is that it is very quick to add your food (in most cases) and you’ll get complete nutritional information.

My Journey to Millions

My Journey to Millions is an 8 year old personal finance blog focused on topics including basic personal finance issues, advanced insurance planning, high net worth estate planning. In addition, there is a particular focus on dividend growth investing and option trading.